WAG bar setting question

[LJL07]

I know zilch about bar settings. DD (8) is level 4. She's got her bar routine down, but she says she can only do the pike squat on jump thing to the high bar if the bars are set on 2 or 3. She is pretty short (<4 feet). She works out with some taller girls and today the bar was set on 5. She said she could barely catch the high bar and was falling. She is concerned she will go to a meet, and the bars will be too far apart for her comfort. But don't they adjust the bars? Or are they required to do the routines on a certain setting?

 

[kayjaybe]

At all the L4 & 5 meets I've been to, they don't adjust the bar settings. BUT, they have also had 2 sets of bars which seem to have different settings.

So the taller kids tend to use one set and smaller kids the other set.

Even at dd's L7 state meet last year they didn't seem to adjust the bars, which was a problem because she was 13 and the 13 yos were also paired with the 15+ kids. So my tiny-for-her-age (4'4") dd had to use the same settings as some of the 5'5" 18 year olds. Less than ideal.

 

[LJL07]

Maybe the expectation is that they are supposed to be able to do the routine on any setting then?? My guess is she's gotten comfortable on the lower setting and is scared on the higher setting. I guess she will just have to get used to it!

 

[wallflower]

Of course coaches adjust the bars to their gymnasts setting at meets.

I'd be very worried about any coach kayjaybe that didn't adjust the bars at a meet to what the kid practices on. Perhaps the bar setting was already set. I highly doubt any coach would get to a state meet and just shrug their shoulders and leave the bar set wherever.

And for the record an 18 year that is taller can have the same bar setting as an 8 year old. Perhaps they both use the fig setting. DD's gym has only 2 settings they use: FIG and what the girls call wide.

 

[gymdog]

1. There is no specific setting. The correct setting for level 4 is where they are not jumping much more than their stretched body otherwise it's likely that jump is going to look awful.

2. Even so, 2/3 is very close, unless there's maybe a misunderstanding here. So I can understand why the coach might want to work it out. Even my 7 year olds can jump on 4 okay. My 8-10s jump on F. I have tall 8 year olds this year though and they make it okay, otherwise they'd be on 4. F is after 4 on typical AAI bars.

3. I can't understand why any kid this age would be using a bar set farther than F.

4. I have never been to a meet where coaches didn't set the bar for their kids, maybe if you have an extremely lazy coach who doesn't care about winning but in my state if the springboard is so much as an inch from the coach's liking you'll hear about it. Anyway, for safety's sake, it is necessary to practice and compete on the same bar setting.

5. Kids make excuses about a lot at meets so it is possible a kid reported "I thought the bars were too far!" when in fact the bars were the same setting.

Ultimately, you guys should ask your coaches about this, but I very strictly control jumping to the high bar.

 

[duyetanh]

Yes they adjust the bars! Case in point, my child who is less than 4 feet (and was even more so last season) was paired with a girl almost a teenager who was over 5 feet tall. Now what the settings were? I have no clue. And still don't to this day. But they adjusted those bars at every meet we went to last year....

 

[GYM0M]

When dd competed L4, the bars had to be pulled all the way in. Her coach moved them every time. I'm not certain that she could reach the high bar from a squat on at FIG settings now! Lol!

 

[gymdog]

1. There is no specific setting. The correct setting for level 4 is where they are not jumping much more than their stretched body otherwise it's likely that jump is going to look awful.

2. Even so, 2/3 is very close, unless there's maybe a misunderstanding here. So I can understand why the coach might want to work it out. Even my 7 year olds can jump on 4 okay. My 8-10s jump on F. F is after 4 on typical AAI bars.

3. I can't understand why any kid this age would be using a bar set farther than F.

4. I have never been to a meet where coaches didn't set the bar for their kids, maybe if you have an extremely lazy coach who doesn't care about winning but in my state if the springboard is so much as an inch from the coach's liking you'll hear about it. Anyway, for safety's sake, it is necessary to practice and compete on the same bar setting.

5. Kids make excuses about a lot at meets so it is possible a kid reported "I thought the bars were too far!" when in fact the bars were the same setting.

Ultimately, you guys should ask your coaches about this, but I very strictly control jumping to the high bar.

Forgot to add, 2 is so close that the bars tend to lose some stability at this point and it's hard to get the tensions tight enough. For that reason many coaches never set the bar on 2. I don't. Not being able to jump to 4 minimum means you're on drills (no big deal, not a punishment, you just do drills). The farther the spread the tighter the tensions. I will go two above four or so if needed but that's been just fine for my below average height seven year olds.

 

[MILgymFAM]

My DD is about 5'6 and at her old team there was a girl she always competed with that was about 4'2. The bars were always changed between the two of them. At her new gym, where she hasn't competed yet, they don't always have a set up going that she can use at practice- she is the tallest in her group by over 6 inches- but when that is the case she works first half of skills/routines (low bar) and then works pit bar. I couldn't imagine having some of the tiny ones use her settings, and she can't use theirs.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

We never adjust the bars at practice. There is no time to do that since the mechanism is kind of stuck (the bars are pretty new though) and you need two men to move them. I think the Gymnova bars in general are much harder to adjust than any others. We have two sets of Gymnova bars and both are very hard to adjust. At competitions some gyms want to adjust the bars with the younger girls but our gym usually doesn't. At competitions the bars are set to FIG setting. Our kids do fine with that. Usually the youngest kids to compete on real bars and not just high bar are at least 9 year olds, average age being 10-12.

 

[LJL07]

She says they are "supposed to" be able to do the bars on the fig setting. Is that even farther apart than the 5? I know they are doing a lot of tap swing and kip drills in her group, so maybe that is why they are usually set so close together. And as I suspected there is a "scared" element to this. She fell and got the wind knocked out of her jumping on the 5 setting a few weeks ago, so I think she is extra cautious now.

 

[kayjaybe]

Of course coaches adjust the bars to their gymnasts setting at meets.

I'd be very worried about any coach kayjaybe that didn't adjust the bars at a meet to what the kid practices on. Perhaps the bar setting was already set. I highly doubt any coach would get to a state meet and just shrug their shoulders and leave the bar set wherever.

And for the record an 18 year that is taller can have the same bar setting as an 8 year old. Perhaps they both use the fig setting. DD's gym has only 2 settings they use: FIG and what the girls call wide.

CORRECTION! I was wrong about the state meet. Just asked dd. They did switch between 2 settings for the group. They had shorter kids go first on one setting and taller on another setting. But they did not reset for every kid. It seems like they went with the 2 settings that would work for most.

But at other meets for everything I've seen through L7, they had 2 sets of bars with different settings and you chose which set you wanted to use, but they didn't adjust them from there.

 

[Becauseisaid]

'Round here, coaches from different gyms will generally jump in to help each other change the bar settings at a meet. It's kind of like watching a pit crew change tires in racing - everyone rushes in and grabs a bar. I always want to yell out a time when they finish.

 

[HoldThePhone]

In past yeas the level 4s in our gym have had different settings. 2 or 3 between 15 or so girls. This year, there are so where between 12-14 girls, and everyone is using FIG. It took some time for my short dd to mentally conquer that, but all seems to be well now. She's the youngest and shortest by a good bit so not many concessions are made for just her. Vault is on a 1 though she needs it on a zero, they say it will be at meets, I just hope she gets some practice at it prior as well.

 

[Committed]

DD says her entire group is on "2 below 4" - is that a setting?
They're 8-10 yo L5s. Height ranges from 4'0"- 4'7''

 

[sce]

She says they are "supposed to" be able to do the bars on the fig setting. Is that even farther apart than the 5? I know they are doing a lot of tap swing and kip drills in her group, so maybe that is why they are usually set so close together. And as I suspected there is a "scared" element to this. She fell and got the wind knocked out of her jumping on the 5 setting a few weeks ago, so I think she is extra cautious now.

So the coach is not there spotting? Esp. for ones that a are newer to the jump to high bar having a coach there is best.

 

[raenndrops]

Our gym now has three uneven bars... each with a different setting, and two of them get adjusted for some of the girls. Before the first meet, HC will write down each girl's settings... and pick the two most used "big bars" settings and the two most used "little bars" settings and get the girls that are outside of those settings to work whichever is closer to her preferred and see if it works.
When we go to meets, the girls warm up and compete based on their bar settings so they don't have to constantly change the settings.

 

[LJL07]

So the coach is not there spotting? Esp. for ones that a are newer to the jump to high bar having a coach there is best.

This is a good point. I will have to ask her. She's only been doing jumps to the high bar a couple of months, so in my mind, she's still a newbie.

 

[LJL07]

DD says her entire group is on "2 below 4" - is that a setting?
They're 8-10 yo L5s. Height ranges from 4'0"- 4'7''

This is starting to sound like a mechanical engineering situation. I think bar settings might be over my head!

 

[LJL07]

In past yeas the level 4s in our gym have had different settings. 2 or 3 between 15 or so girls. This year, there are so where between 12-14 girls, and everyone is using FIG. It took some time for my short dd to mentally conquer that, but all seems to be well now. She's the youngest and shortest by a good bit so not many concessions are made for just her. Vault is on a 1 though she needs it on a zero, they say it will be at meets, I just hope she gets some practice at it prior as well.

So is FIG the farthest apart setting? I know you and gym0m have very petite daughters, so I guess height isn't an excuse. I forgot about the vault settings...I don't even want to know!